Yet
after the first moment of terror I felt ashamed of suspecting a man
of such extraordinary faithfulness. Instead of ascending he was
descending the gallery. An evil design would have taken him up not
down. This reflection restored me to calmness, and I turned to other
thoughts. None but some weighty motive could have induced so quiet a
man to forfeit his sleep. Was he on a journey of discovery? Had he
during the silence of the night caught a sound, a murmuring of
something in the distance, which had failed to affect my hearing?

CHAPTER XXIII.

WATER DISCOVERED

For a whole hour I was trying to work out in my delirious brain the
reasons which might have influenced this seemingly tranquil huntsman.
The absurdest notions ran in utter confusion through my mind. I
thought madness was coming on!

But at last a noise of footsteps was heard in the dark abyss. Hans
was approaching. A flickering light was beginning to glimmer on the
wall of our darksome prison; then it came out full at the mouth of
the gallery. Hans appeared.

He drew close to my uncle, laid his hand upon his shoulder, and
gently woke him. My uncle rose up.

"What is the matter?" he asked.

"_Watten!_" replied the huntsman.

No doubt under the inspiration of intense pain everybody becomes
endowed with the gift of divers tongues. I did not know a word of
Danish, yet instinctively I understood the word he had uttered.

"Water! water!" I cried, clapping my hands and gesticulating like a
madman.

"Water!" repeated my uncle. "Hvar?" he asked, in Icelandic.

"_Nedat,_" replied Hans.

"Where? Down below!" I understood it all. I seized the hunter's
hands, and pressed them while he looked on me without moving a muscle
of his countenance.

The preparations for our departure were not long in making, and we
were soon on our way down a passage inclining two feet in seven. In
an hour we had gone a mile and a quarter, and descended two thousand
feet.

Then I began to hear distinctly quite a new sound of something
running within the thickness of the granite wall, a kind of dull,
dead rumbling, like distant thunder. During the first part of our
walk, not meeting with the promised spring, I felt my agony
returning; but then my uncle acquainted me with the cause of the
strange noise.

"Hans was not mistaken," he said. "What you hear is the rushing of a
torrent."

"A torrent?" I exclaimed.

"There can be no doubt; a subterranean river is flowing around us."

We hurried forward in the greatest excitement. I was no longer
sensible of my fatigue. This murmuring of waters close at hand was
already refreshing me. It was audibly increasing. The torrent, after
having for some time flowed over our heads, was now running within
the left wall, roaring and rushing. Frequently I touched the wall,
hoping to feel some indications of moisture: But there was no hope
here.

Yet another half hour, another half league was passed.

Then it became clear that the hunter had gone no farther. Guided by
an instinct peculiar to mountaineers he had as it were felt this
torrent through the rock; but he had certainly seen none of the
precious liquid; he had drunk nothing himself.

Soon it became evident that if we continued our walk we should widen
the distance between ourselves and the stream, the noise of which was
becoming fainter.

We returned. Hans stopped where the torrent seemed closest. I sat
near the wall, while the waters were flowing past me at a distance of
two feet with extreme violence. But there was a thick granite wall
between us and the object of our desires.

Without reflection, without asking if there were any means of
procuring the water, I gave way to a movement of despair.

Hans glanced at me with, I thought, a smile of compassion.

He rose and took the lamp. I followed him. He moved towards the wall.
I looked on. He applied his ear against the dry stone, and moved it
slowly to and fro, listening intently. I perceived at once that he
was examining to find the exact place where the torrent could be
heard the loudest.